Question about Aluminum stockpot

Hello - First post, long time lurker.

I'll be brewing my first brew this weekend. I have purchased a brand new 40 quart aluminum stockpot. My question is:

The pot came with instructions on how to prepare the pot by heating up oil repeatedly. I have read that you should boil water in the pot to build up an oxide layer for brewing. Should I only boil water, or should I do the oil heating as well? I would assume I can skip oil, but I just wanted to make sure.

Thanks!

No oil! Just boil water.

Thank you for the reply.

I had guessed as much. Next question: How much water should I boil?

only water and if you want to avoid the boil just fill it up with water and leave it over night that will do a good enough job\
if you do oil in it and don't get all of it out it will effect your head retention

I got a 23 qt aluminum pressure cooker I want to use for brewing (among its other many uses). I'm going to use it for cooking too which means it will occasionally get some oil in it (at least if I want the food to be worth eating with a good brew). after reading advice about oil & head retention, wondering if I should wash with soap&water & then boil a couple pots of water before brew?

Well I bought a used 40 qt turkey fryer from a guy on craigslist. That was before I realized that oil could negatively impact your brew. In order to clean it out, I took several steps:

1. Clean it out very well with the scrubby side of a sponge and dish soap
2. Boiled about 6 gallons water in it for about an hour
3. Left it overnight and still saw that there was some oil floating on top, so I kicked it into overdrive.

4. I washed it out with oxyclean, rinsed, and put more oxyclean in it to soak until I got back from classes. When I came back there was a dark black layer (the oxide layer) which was formed quickly by the oxygenating action of the cleaner, so I just thought the faster the better.

5. Finally, I rinsed out the oxyclean and then washed with bar keeper's friend, and rinsed that out.

6. I filled it with water and left it overnight and saw that there was no oil floating on it, so I assume that it's good to go.

Right now I'm boiling about 7 gallons of wort in it with no problems.

So anyway, just make sure that there is no oil in it before you brew with it and you should be golden.

Fetus- Fill it all the way up- make sure your first batch of beer in that thing doesn't do any of the oxidizing you didn't do. It might take a little longer to boil, but you only have to do it once, so you may as well do it all the way.

Luvz2brew- just wash the bejeezus out of it. Hot water, etc.. The boils seem unnecessary to me.

Thanks for the information. Much appreciated.